INTRODUCTION

Part III of the Framework course covers the early history of God’s Kingdom program from immediately after the cataclysmic flood in Noah’s day through the birth of the nation Israel to the

reign of King David. This is that period of time known as the “rise of civilization” and “ancient history”. This is the time when God did a unique historic work in starting the national existence of Israel. As we read in Deuteronomy, “What nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, . . .that hath the statutes and judgments so righteous as this law?” (4:7-8) Indeed, at the end of history this work with Israel is the object of a heavenly anthem (Rev. 15:3) and the last war (Rev. 20:9).

Part III discusses truths that are treated by the world in a somewhat different manner than the truths covered in Part II. Part II discussed truths of origins that the pagan mind has buried in a sort of “global amnesia”—a deliberate “forgetting” of the recent creation of the universe and man’s fall into sin. Such historical events lie on the other side of the great flood and re-birth of humanity through Noah. They no longer speak of our immediate experience. The truths of origins have all been perverted into various schemes of pagan idolatry. God’s work on this side of the great flood, however, is not quite so easily buried. In this study you will discover why God rejected every race, every culture, and every nation as the instruments of His kingdom work. You will learn how He began His kingdom work by creating an entirely new nation with new laws and new leadership forms, a “counter-culture” clearly visible to all the nations.

Such a separatist work is viewed by the pagan world as profoundly disruptive. It offends. The idea that one group of people have the truth and no one else strikes mankind as arrogant, unfair, undemocratic, and a dangerous fanaticism. What right does God have to elect some but not all? Why would He so disrupt the cultures of the nations with such a method? To suppress this Old Testament message, unbelieving scholars have labored for nearly three centuries to “re-interpret”

Israel’s existence. Through their pagan framework they have sought to write ancient history after the manner of the carnal mind that is at such great enmity with God. Ancient history must fit with the evolutionary Continuity of Being (see Part II). All historical events must be explained in terms of natural processes going on today (cf. II Pet 3:4). The biblical text is thus subjected to “higher criticism”, re-arranged chronologically, and fractured into thousands of supposedly “contradictory” traditions..2

Then the “assured results” of such higher criticism is distributed throughout the public education system, the academies, and even some professedly Christian seminaries. Just as the public is forced through government power to sponsor evolution as the official origin-myth, so it is likewise compelled to finance the destruction of the Bible in the name of education.

Part III builds upon the truths of Part II: everything follows logically once you begin with the Creator-creature distinction instead of the pagan Continuity of Being; God’s disruptive intervention into global history is quite reasonable if you correctly see the results of the fall. If the Lord God of Israel is the Creator of the universe, if our existence has become “abnormal” and all our social institutions contaminated by sin, then God’s kingdom program must disrupt our present life.

There is no need for you to follow a strategy of capitulation or accommodation in your Bible study.

This study, therefore, should encourage you to reject such deceitful scholarship and, instead, trust fully in God’s record of His work in ages past. Only as you acquire trust in God as the Lord of all history, will you find victory in trusting Him with the details of your life. Think about it--two thirds of the Bible has to do with God’s kingdom program through Israel! Why is that? The early events of Israel’s history were written that “we might have hope”, not doubt (Rom. 15:4).

Some suggestions on getting the most out of this material: (1) read quickly through the large sections of the Old Testament being studied (e.g., in the second chapter read from Genesis 12 to Genesis 50 as you would a novel); (2) use scrap paper to write down your observations on the grand themes being discussed as they appear in story after story; (3) interact with the exercises and pursue those questions that especially interest you by going to the Appendices and suggested sources for more extensive materials; and (4) when you can in full conscience do it, start using what you learn about God’s greatness in prayer and praise to Him.

“Disruptive Truths of God’s Kingdom” is dedicated to those who seek Him and want to know Him with both heart and mind. Salvation and sanctification always interfere with “the way things are” because the way things are is an abnormal, dying condition. Thank God He disrupts our fleshly ways! We must learn to hear His call out of this dead-end existence into His Kingdom program that goes from eternity to eternity! Only then will we experience Him and know Him as we ought.